Restful Obscurity
by A Vague Shape In The Dark
Summary: A series of Rose/Ten or Rose/Tentoo one-shots. Newest chapter comes first!
1. Rosebud (Duplicate Doctor)

The Doctor looked up from the ground as he heard his wife approaching him. She, in a white dress, was making her way across the lawn, an empty laundry basket on her hip, the grass behind and to her sides an emerald-green; the clothes on the line moving in the breeze.

"How're they coming?" she nodded to the patch of tiled earth where he was sitting.

"OH! Brilliantly! They're little buds now. See 'em? Little buds. Just love 'em when they're little buds."

Rose pursed her lips _him and his garden._ She looked the Doctor over as he tended to his plants. He was filthy. His clothes, hands - face even - all of his outside was covered in specks of rich, dark soil. "You do know Mum's coming over in about 15 minutes...?"

He looked to his hands then cluelessly to Rose, mouth open.

"Shoulda known you'd forget."

He raised to his knees, facing her. "I've had my mind on other things."

"Little buds?" She suggested, voice light.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and tilting his head he said: "weeeell..." as if in agreement. He then buried his face in the fabric over her belly, covering the area with small pressings of his open lips. They'd been talking about creating a little bud of their own to grow inside Rose.

She looked below her chin to his frantic hair and the way his head gently swayed as he kissed her skin; her dress becoming wet from his mouth. The touch went further, making its way to her chest; her lips. Her eyes went to the sky as he eased her to the ground, dirty hands roaming over her body.

She too, forgot of her mother's impending visit.

~o~O~o~

Laying on the ground, her husband's fingers in her mused hair, Rose was alive. He'd whispered his love after knowing her body and she'd echoed his sentiments, as they were heartfelt.

Idly she turned and with a sudden bolt sat upright. Her mother's car was pulling in the drive! Basking in the aftermath, her husband, half-clothed on the spring lawn, and she still feeling the electric hum and vividness of their act, had to in minutes speak of various humdrum things with her mum, father and little brother. The change in pace seemed almost unreal. If only she could stay where she was... but she couldn't. They'd come out here looking and that would be even worse. She shook the dazed man beside her. "Get up, Mum's here!"

Straightening their clothes they hurriedly made their way to the front of the house. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mum, Dad... we- we were busy in the garden."

"Yeah. I can see that," Jackie looked them up and down, "but I don't think what you were doing had a thing to do with plants."

Rose looked to her soiled dress, muddy handprints were spotted over the outline of her entire body, especially upon the most inappropriate areas. The Doctor's shirt had several buttons in the wrong holes, his hair was a wreak and he was still covered in dirt. He hid his hands behind his back, feigned innocence and hoped that was enough.

"Working on making little Tony here an uncle, eh?" Pete chided as Jackie laughed.


	2. As Twilight Fell (The Doctor)

The Doctor, observing the heady obsidian sky looming over London, exhaled and tied a string from a silver balloon 'round his wrist. Lamp-posts lit the wet and mostly vacant street he and Rose traipsed, and faintly they did also illuminate the outlines of buildings nestled at the side of the road. The rest of the area was left in darkness. An unseen mystery at a bestial hour.

Passing a row of strangely hued buildings coloured by the lamps at their foundations, the Doctor noticed a veiled corner in their Gothic architecture and - for the briefest of moments - envisioned himself pinning Rose against the cold stones hidden within; kissing her in the shadows where only they would know. The urgency and want of the image inflamed him, so much so that he stopped in his place.

Rose noticed his unease and stopped to look curiously upon his features. Using all his strength to banish the thought and desire accompanying the vision, he closed his heavy eyes and swallowed, urging his voice to break through the silence. "Fancy a cuppa?" He pointed a thumb towards a coffee shop in the near distance; his voice free of depravity.

"No thanks. I'm happy to just walk."

"Any destination in mind?"

Rose, smiling, took his hand and turned to face him. "I dunno, wherever..." She murmured, turning his arm sideways and swinging it a bit, hoping to convey unto him her playful mood.

"Right. 'Wherever' it is then," he said, grinning, and like a madman he took off running, dragging Ms. Tyler along.

Rose laughed, being swept away in the childishness of the moment. With the chilly breeze hitting her square in the face and the Doctor by her side, she didn't care that her trainers and jeans were getting soaked, the same as she didn't care that they were behaving like fools just for the sake of it: she felt weightless. They continued to run, flying past shopping centres, flying past life until the Doctor placed an ill-advised step on slick pavement and was sent careening toward the harsh cement - taking Rose with him. Breaking her fall, he received a nasty gash to the face from where the pavement had greedily removed a bit of flesh to keep its own.

Rose, one leg draped over the Doctor's back, the other touching the front of his striped trousers, laid motionless as she tried to comprehend what had just happened. Stirring, she placed a scratched palm on the Doctor's face, wiping a smear of dirt away from his now bleeding wound. "Oh Doctor," she sighed, feeling sorry for him but faintly wanting to laugh at the same time.

He roused, as if suddenly interrupted from a deep sleep, but said nothing. Moving one arm from under his addled body, he cupped Rose's face and searched her eyes for forgiveness. "Are you OK?" He asked, his voice steeped in concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little scratch here." She opened her palm to face the moon, exposing the tiny mar in her skin. He placed her hand in his, gently folding her fingers, and kissed at the escaping blood, letting his lips part as he met her; teeth grazing flesh.

When he realized what he was doing, he hurriedly left her side, thinking himself a fool for lowering his defenses, and as he did so a tremendous outburst was heard. At first Ms. Tyler believed she had heard a firecracker until the Doctor reached beneath his body and withdrew his silver balloon, now burst.


	3. Sighs Broke From Him (Dupilcate Doctor)

The house was impregnated with shadows, save for the kitchen which was dimly illuminated by an open ice box. The light the box provided was more a memory of luminescence than the real thing, for its heart was engulfed by a body. A body whose narrow pyjama clad posterior was flooded in white and casting strange, wavering shadows on the walls as it scuttled from the upper to the lower shelf and back again.

"Whacha lookin' for?" Rose asked, voice strained.

The Doctor, startled, bumped his head on the underbelly of the freezer. Slowly backing out of the icy trove, rubbing at his hair, he turned to face his love with a wide grin. "Hello you. Bad day at work?" he asked, taking a bite from an already half-eaten ice lolly.

"Rubbish," she answered, looking at her feet and swinging the refrigerator door.

"Ahh." Red juice from the lolly trickled from his open mouth and down his chin. Taking another bite, finishing it, he kissed Rose, overwhelming her with cold cherry syrup. With Rose distracted, he took hold of one of the belt loops on her jeans and began to drag her outside.

"Oi!" Rose laughed. "Where are you taking me?"

"To the great unknown!" He cried as the back door slammed shut behind them.

The backyard was awash in darkness. Rose couldn't see a thing as he abruptly stopped, having reached his destination, and threw her into a kiddie pool. Only after he was certain he wouldn't cause her any harm did he land beside her. Rose had shrieked when she met the cold water, then gripped with one hand the inflated edge of pool before smacking him upside the head. "You are mad! Completely mad."

The end of the second 'mad' almost didn't leave her lips as he took them between his teeth and quickly rolled on top of her, embracing her with arms and parted legs. "But you love me anyway," he mumbled releasing her only to claim her again.

The water played about her upper body as his hands searched the softness of her back; re-awakening the water and making both freshly aware of its coolness. She could hear it lapping against its containment, against the Doctor's legs and her own.

Rose's eyes were closed, but she felt everything, every little movement as the Doctor removed his hands from the water to cup her face, leaving beads of silk to fall as if tears from his bony flesh. Not being able to see her face as he would've liked, he laid his head on her chest. When she opened her eyes again she saw only the darkened sky and faint stars overhead, cloudy and shifting in her unsteady gaze. Dizzied, she closed her eyes and drifted, someplace between wakefulness and sleep. In this state she felt the silent pull of water as it repeatedly drew away from her arm as the Doctor played about capturing and releasing handfuls.

"Where'd you get this thing anyway?" She whispered.

"The pool? Bought it today at Woolworth's. Made a killing at my little shop. Sold almost the entire table of vegetables."

"Even those horrible little tomatoes?"

"Yeah. Even the tomatoes."

"I'm glad you got this..." she trailed off.

"Rose Tyler," a smile could be heard in his voice. "I think you are falling asleep. We'd best get you inside and out of these wet clothes."

Focusing on only the last bit, she kept her eyes closed but curled her lips into a thick smile and traced her tongue across her teeth. "Allonsy."


End file.
